


Sit, Stay

by eastwood



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, Shapeshifting, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 15:18:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18694093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eastwood/pseuds/eastwood
Summary: Gabriel needs a place to spend the night where he won't be found, and a quiet little house out in the country should be fine.





	Sit, Stay

Gabriel is tired. He’d run for over an hour, maybe two judging by how high the moon had crept up in the sky while he wasn’t watching, and hid for a while with the shadow of a hedge swallowing up his black fur until he couldn’t hear any traffic on the nearest road. Then he ran some more.

Usually he liked running this way, all feet hitting the ground in rhythm, claws digging into the soft undergrowth and dirt better than cleats ever would, the steady stretch and clench of his rib cage that came naturally with running on four legs making it all feel effortless. Usually he could keep going for hours and hours without ever slowing down.

Now his hind leg is killing him, a mind-numbing burn that has begun to turn icy the longer he went. He’d sprained something, he thinks, probably from that misjudged leap in the dark he’d taken to make it into the river.

He hadn’t managed to entirely dry off after his little dip in the water, either, not dripping wet but his fur feels uncomfortably damp and heavy close to the skin, and he’d gotten cold while hiding in that bush.

There aren’t many safe places he can stop to rest or get dry, though, if he wants to avoid people. Unfortunately he may not have much of a choice. He’d debated turning farther afield into the country but didn’t want to risk getting stuck out there with a fucked leg and end up limping his way back to civilization a week later, half-starved. Jack might manage to track him down before then, except that’s not exactly how he would like to be found.

Gabriel slows down to a trot, and then a careful walk, lowering his head and keeping to the shadowed undergrowth as he approaches the next set of lights he’s spotted coming up on the other side of the tree line. Another tiny neighborhood, small houses on good-sized plots of land giving some distance between them. He skips the first one due to the fence, no chance it’s a good idea to try and make it over that tonight, and the second and third that have lights on in the yards. The fourth is at the end of the road, dark inside and out except for the faint blue glow of a television from one of the interior rooms. It’s a little shabby on the outside, and the grass inches too long - promising.

Gabriel circles to the front. A single mud spattered pickup truck occupies the driveway and no other sign of activity is apparent. Then he returns behind the house and sits at the edge of the trees to watch for a while. It’s well past midnight by now, so he only keeps that up for another hour before deciding it’ll be safe enough to find a nice dry spot to get some rest until he sneaks back out at dawn.

He creeps through the yard to the wooden porch at the back, which unfortunately has been closed off underneath with slats that would be too noisy to pull off. The porch itself looks inviting though, covered by a sloped awning that shadows the inside from the moon, filled with stacked plastic chairs and miscellaneous yard clutter. Gabriel pads up the two steps and sniffs around at it all, getting a sense for the undisturbed dust, dirt, and cigarette ash, pausing only to sneer at a kitchen bin half full of crushed beer cans that smell anywhere from a few days to a few hours old.

Whoever lived here was probably sleeping off a dozen beers then, passed out in front of their TV. A regular nightly activity for some, in these parts. Gabriel is satisfied that he won’t be found before morning, so he chooses a clear space between the lawn chairs and a jumbled garden hose and curls up with his twinging leg stretched straight to get some sleep.

He wakes up to the screendoor of the house swinging open on unoiled hinges, and a man stepping out heavily onto the porch with him. Fuck.

Gabriel stays very still after opening his eyes. It’s pitch black under the awning, and so is he - chances are the man won’t see him at all. He watches the guy scratch at his head while fumbling with something else in his other hand, and then a lighter flicks on, the orange flame lighting up the face of a young man with a bearded jaw. The flame goes out, leaving just the glowing ember of a cigarette, and Gabriel lets out his held breath. So does the man, a long drawn sigh as he blows smoke out into the yard and scratches at himself again, this time through the stiff hair on his bare stomach above the hem of some ratty looking gym shorts. He looks defenseless, and a little dumb. Gabriel decides to wait him out.

It takes about ten minutes for the man to finish his cigarette, which he stubs out into a coffee tin repurposed into an ashtray. Then he spits off the side of the porch, scratches his head one more time, and turns to go back inside. Gabriel starts to relax.

Except, before he does, there’s a burst of angry chatter from some wild animal out in the trees, and Gabriel is wound up enough that he starts in place just as the man swings his head to look. His glance catches first on where Gabriel lies hidden, and he must see the edges of a large shadow or the shine of Gabriel’s eyes because the next thing that happens is the man skidding backwards and bursting out, “Jesus fucking Christ!”

Gabriel gives up hiding as a lost cause. He’s up like a shot, snarling towards the guy to make him scramble further away in another flurry of curses, before the steps of the porch are clear enough for him to jump down.

And his bad leg chooses then to fail entirely. He lands with a yelp in an inelegant pile, then claws himself upright only to be rewarded with a white hot bolt of fire from paw to hip that nearly takes him down to the dirt again. A light turns on behind him, exposing the overgrown backyard with him right there, having only made it a few yards from the porch. Jesus fucking Christ indeed.

“Fuckin’ shit, you’re one big dog. I thought you were a wolf or somethin’,” the man says, drawling all his words together. Gabriel lurches around and growls deep and angry, but the man holds up his hands and keeps a good distance. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean t’scare you darlin’, it’s okay. Hold on a minute for me, would ya?”

 _Like hell_ , Gabriel thinks, though surprisingly enough the man turns around and disappears into the house, leaving him alone to start limping away. He doesn’t get very far before he hears the back door squeak open again, though, and the man is talking to him again.

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, his feet rustling through the long grass as he approaches. Gabriel hobbles to face him sidelong, growling a warning that the guy subsequently ignores. He’s holding a casserole dish in his hands. “Don’t be like that, darlin’, I’m not gonna do anything to ya. What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ out here, huh? Looks like you had a bad night, sweetheart.”

If Gabriel could roll his eyes, he would. He growls louder instead as the guy keeps inching closer, one small step at a time, frustratingly oblivious to how much damage Gabriel could do to him very quickly if he came any closer, injured or not.

“You hungry, big guy? Yeah? Want some tasty, uh.” The guy finally stops moving and glances into the dish he’s holding, then tilts it sideways into the light to squint at it. “Well, I don’t know. It’s got meat in it, anyway. You like that?”

It does have meat in it, and cheese, from what Gabriel can smell. A lot of cheese. He growls.

“C’mon gorgeous,” the guy coos. “Have some supper and I’ll leave ya alone. You can go right back to sleepin’ on the porch even, I won’t bother ya. See? I’ll put it right here.” True enough, he slowly bends down and puts the dish on the grass, pushing it a tiny bit closer with the tips of his fingers. Then he straightens up and takes a few steps back. “Alright, handsome? You eat that and I’ll go inside.”

Gabriel could still bite him, if he wanted. All it’d take was one short lunge and he’d have this guy on the ground with his teeth around his throat. It’s an appealing thought, but the guy is already backing further away without breaking eye contact, all the way to the porch steps, which he blindly trips over with a muttered, “sonuvabitch,” barely managing to catch the railing before he falls flat on his ass.

He goes inside without further incident. The light at the back door switches off, and Gabriel is left standing there in the dark with the food on the ground in front of him. Seems like he’s dealing with a real moron, here; his original assessment has held up. The guy is harmless. Most people this close to all the forest and farmland would’ve come back out with a shotgun after finding a big strange dog on their property, not a casserole.

Maybe Gabriel has finally found some luck, then. He waits for a while, to see if the guy will come out again, but true to his word he stays in the house. Gabriel should keep moving now that he’s been discovered, but the last time he’d eaten was sometime the previous day and he doesn’t know the next time he’ll get the opportunity to have a meal. He decides to check the food first.

It smells a little better than poison. He eats some despite the fact that it’s clearly just been pulled out of a fridge. The cheese, which serves to hide a mess of ground beef and overcooked macaroni as far as he can tell, is a little disgusting when congealed. Thankfully that’s easier to ignore as a dog, but the cold food sits like a lump in his stomach after it’s been empty for so long.

After eating the thought of limping back out on the run sounds like a much worse plan. His leg lights up with hurt every time he tries to put it to the ground and can’t hold even a little of his weight, so he’d be left hopping along on the other three for who knows how many miles before he finds somewhere else to stay. Maybe this is his best option for now, as grim as that seems. If the man in the house leaves him alone and provides more food it won’t be that long before Gabriel is well enough to keep moving. And if he doesn’t, at the very least he could get some more rest first.

In the end Gabriel doesn’t spend much time thinking about it. He goes to the porch again, gritting his teeth the whole way, and hefts himself up the two steps as gently as he can. The spot he laid in before is good enough as any, so he flops down there, stretches out, and waits to fall asleep.

The squeak of the back door wakes him a second time. Gabriel jerks up to find it well past dawn, then growls as his hurt leg protests the sudden movement. The man from the house is looking at him from around the door.

“Hey pretty boy,” the man says, honey sweet and coaxing. “Don’t you look fine when the sun’s up, huh?”

Gabriel stares back, silent and irritated, until the guy sticks a plate full of food out. It smells infinitely better than the greasy mess from last night.

“Want some breakfast?”

Breakfast turns out to be a steaming pile of half a dozen scrambled eggs and some kind of processed lunch meat, also fried. The man crouches down and slides the plate over to Gabriel, and he digs in before it’s come to a stop. Unlike before, the man sticks around while Gabriel eats; he shuffles over to take a seat on the porch steps and lights up a cigarette.

It doesn’t take long for Gabriel to wolf down the food, and then lick the plate clean, so for a while he has to wait and watch while the man smokes. He is definitely a young man, late twenties at Gabriel’s best guess, and dressed in the same gym shorts as before, nothing else. He’s fairly big, long limbs and wide shoulders heavy with a decent layer of muscle, and fairly brown, from the tan skin to the dark hair all up his chest and down his arms and legs, and the chestnut color of the hair on his head and untrimmed beard.

He’s also littered with tattoos, now that Gabriel has the time to look closer. Mostly black line drawings, some faded and some newer, all looking like they got done as part of a 2-for-1 discount special in some grimy stick and poke shop. Gabriel spots wings, ribbons, words and numbers, birds, flowers, a skull and crossbones, something that might be either a mermaid or just a poorly thought out fish. Maybe he offered his hide as a practice canvas for someone who bought a tattoo gun from a garage sale. Idiot country boy with nothing better to do.

The guy finishes his cigarette and levers himself up with his hands on his knees. “So I got work today,” he says conversationally, as he stubs out the butt in the coffee can by the door. He stops, one hand on the handle, looking at Gabriel. “Maybe take you to get that leg checked too, and put your picture up for whoever might be looking for ya. I’ll bet somebody out there is missin’ a handsome fella like you.”

Gabriel feels his lip curl, the beginning of a snarl. If this shithead tried to get him into a car he’d make him regret it, scrambled eggs or not.

The guy’s eyebrow ticks up. “Ha. I could swear you know what I’m sayin’. Smart dog, huh?” He grins and disappears into the house though, instead of following through on his threats to take Gabriel elsewhere.

Gabriel can hear him inside, a kitchen sink running and dishes being rattled around before a door shuts and the sounds get too muffled for him to tell what the guy is doing. After a few minutes he puts his head down and enjoys the quiet. He knows it’s too much to hope for that the guy will leave for work without bothering him again, so it’s not very disappointing when he hears footsteps approaching from around the side of the house.

“Hey boy, wanna go for a ride?” the man calls. He’s fully dressed now, in a threadbare t-shirt and jeans tucked over a pair of scuffed up work boots. He pats his thigh when Gabriel looks over, smiling artificially bright. “C’mon, sugar! Let’s get in the truck!” Gabriel turns away and puts his head down again.

The guy grumbles a bit but leaves in the end, his truck rumbling off unseen down the road until it’s too far away to be heard. At least he’s smart enough to recognize that he’d have a very hard time convincing Gabriel to go anywhere he didn’t want to be.

Once left alone, for a while Gabriel merely dozes. The little sleep he’d managed to scrape together between the man’s interruptions hadn’t made much of a dent in the exhaustion that had settled into him since yesterday, and his leg is still good and truly fucked, so he’s not looking forward to getting up. Eventually, however, he does need to take care of some things.

First things first, he shakes off the dust from laying on a dirty porch floor all night before gingerly making his way to the back door. The handle isn’t the sort that he can manage in this form, unfortunately, and he sighs deeply before resigning himself to change back.

The shift is uncomfortable given his leg, and with just two feet for balance it hurts even more to stand, but now he has hands to open the door. Gabriel hobbles into the house to see what he can learn about the man who lives here while he has a chance.

The room where the back door opens is the kitchen he’d expected. Gabriel looks around before stepping all the way inside. Small, a little messy, with worn down linoleum in an old fashioned pattern covering the floor and a case of beer sitting by the fridge. There aren’t any curtains on the window above the sink, which looks out across the porch and into the backyard. It’s not the cleanest - there’s a ring left by a coffee mug and crumbs on the square table pushed into the corner - but it smells ok, the sink is free of dirty dishes, and floor isn’t sticky. Gabriel feels comfortable enough continuing on with bare feet.

He heads down a short hall, keeping one hand on the cheap wood panel wall to ease his leg, and pokes his head into a tiny bathroom that has only a sink, shower, and toilet. There’s a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste with the cap missing on the edge of the sink, and the room smells minty and humid, recently used. From that Gabriel takes away it’s the only bathroom in the house. He takes a deeper breath, and is comforted by the distinct lack of mildew or mold.

At the end of the hall is a sitting room, with a sofa and boxy television set, and windows along one wall facing the front of the house beside the front door. There, on a coffee table, is a messy spread of mail. Perfect. He half-staggers over to the sofa and eases himself down, then picks up some of the pile and flips through it.

Ad circulars for big box stores, home goods, furniture, and a gun & hardware shop the next town over. A fishing magazine for “current resident” that’s also mostly advertisements. A take out menu for a pizza place.

Finally, a piece of mail with the homeowner’s name on it: Jesse McCree. It’s an electric bill, open but unpaid.

Gabriel checks the rest of the mail on the table and finds nothing else helpful. He has to take a minute to convince himself it’s time to get back up from the sagging, but comfortable, couch and keep looking.

There’s a bedroom that opens off the sitting room, where the bedsheets are spilled half on the floor along with clothes, a tattered pair of running shoes tossed in the corner, and the closet door has been left wide open for Gabriel to judge the rest of this Jesse McCree’s wardrobe without having to limp all the way over there. It smells like Jesse is a little late doing his laundry, and the shoes would better left outside, perhaps in the trash, but otherwise it’s inoffensive. There’s no hint of another person in the room, occupied by one man only.

Gabriel checks the drawers of the dresser, and then the night stand, sitting down on the bed once he finds it packed with old receipts and other loose paper along with a handful of odds and ends. He spends a while leafing through it all, not learning much of interest. Grocery bills, fast food, liquor stores, a movie theater ticket stub. Boring. Gabriel stuffs it all back in the drawer, not worrying too much about Jesse noticing it’s out of order since there’s no order he can discern anyway.

He sits for a while longer, prodding at some spare change and a cheap plastic lighter that’s been dropped on top of the nightstand as he thinks. This guy, for all he’s seen, seems innocuous enough. A bachelor with a little clapboard house out in the sticks, not well to do but not living in a sty either. Blue-collar, most definitely. Gabriel hadn’t found any pay stubs or bank statements, but he might be able to later if he kept looking, or at least wherever Jesse hides his cash. More relevantly, the guy feeds stray dogs off his own dishes. Kind to animals: check.

As long as Gabriel doesn’t get cornered indoors he’ll have a fair chance of being able to defend himself and escape without breaking cover. If he needs to it would be easy enough to take some clothes and cash, probably the guy’s truck too, and leave whenever he wanted. He’ll stay for a few days then, just until his leg heals up and he can keep moving.

He’s getting tired again, and thankfully that was the last room in the house. He shuffles back through the hallway to the kitchen.

There he helps himself to a glass of water from the sink, since apparently this Jesse McCree isn’t used to keeping dogs and hadn’t left out a bowl for him. He does prefer drinking from a glass, though. He dries the empty cup, sticks it back in the cabinet, and leaves through the back door, making sure it’s shut behind himself.

In the time it’d taken him to check the house it’s now closer to noon than not, and the sun is high in the sky. The shade of the porch feels nice with the day heating up, even moreso once Gabriel changes back to his four-legged self with all its thick fur. He settles down for another nap in the spot next to the garden hose, feeling decently relaxed for the first time since running away. He would eventually have to go back and face the music of course, but for now he’s warm and dry in the little shaded den created by stacked lawn chairs and fake terra-cotta pots. He’s not hungry or thirsty, there’s nothing else to do, and best of all no one is around to bother him. So he sleeps.

The truck wakes him up before Jesse McCree has a chance to, its engine loud and guttural, radio cranked to high volume, and tires crunching through the gravel of the driveway as it rolls up to the house. Gabriel doesn’t bother to lift his head, just listens to the truck turn off, a door slam, the front door of the house open and shut, and booted footsteps start walking around inside.

Eventually the back door swings open and Jesse appears, an unlit cigarette held between his teeth. It threatens to fall out when he smiles wide at Gabriel.

“Hey there, gorgeous. Still here? Want some more of my cookin’ I bet.” He chuckles to himself, plainly thinking that’s hilarious.

 _Not if it’s more like last night_ , Gabriel thinks, looking up at him from his spot. Breakfast had been good, fair enough, but Jesse had left the half-eaten casserole sitting in the yard all day to melt under the sun. It’s been collecting flies.

“Well too bad, I got burgers instead,” Jesse says, and reveals a grease spotted paper bag he’s holding. “Dogs like those, right?”

Gabriel’s tail thumps against the porch before he can stop it. Jesse just laughs again, coming the rest of the way outside and sitting down on the steps. He pulls out a burger wrapped in paper and unwraps most of it before he slides across the porch to Gabriel, then digs into the bag for another one, setting it down beside himself so both hands are free to light his cigarette.

Gabriel gulps the burger down in two bites without moving from his spot. When Jesse just sits there smoking instead of eating he pulls himself to his feet and pads over to stare at him more obviously.

Jesse unwraps the second burger and pushes that towards him too. _Good boy_ , Gabriel thinks, and eats it.

“Don’t mind me, I got more,” Jesse says dryly, watching his food disappear with good humor. Then he holds out a hand, palm up, in Gabriel’s direction. This is the closest they’ve been so far, and Gabriel knows it’s another offering, one meant to set him at ease. Except he’s already rummaged through Jesse’s house and feels perfectly comfortable without the gesture. He sits down and merely looks at him, until Jesse drops his hand and goes digging in the fast food bag instead.

“Alright, here,” he says, drawing out a flimsy cardboard container. “You like apples?” Gabriel does, and he likes whatever deep-fried dessert this thing is supposed to be.

After eating that he turns around and goes back to lie down, while Jesse finishes his cigarette and tucks into his own share of food. When he’s done he crumples up the paper bag and all the wrappers, reaching very slowly just in front of Gabriel’s nose to snatch the last one, then gets up and returns inside.

He’s left the inner door open, with only the screen door shut, and sounds of him moving around in the house are clear. Gabriel listens to him throwing away their trash before a beer can hisses open, and then the shower turns on further inside. It seems to him that Jesse McCree doesn’t have much going on for himself, from what little he’s seen over the course of one day. Working, eating, drinking, sleeping, a house with no visitors and eager to have a strange dog for company, which speaks to the quality of his social life.

It’s boring. Gabriel could use boring right now. He wouldn’t ever get used to it, obviously, not with Jack and his actual life waiting for him on the back burner. But, for a little while, staying here might be nice.

 

 

Jesse likes his life. He works a lot, almost every day, but the job isn’t real hard. He’s good at it, and he gets paid in cash every week which suits him well enough. Worst part is coming home tired and dirty and hot most days, which he usually solves with dinner and a shower and as much beer as he can afford until next payday, so that’s fine too. It doesn’t leave him much time for a hobby, and he doesn’t really have any friends or family to speak of, so sometimes the guys at work will rag on him a bit for living life like an old man though honestly he likes it that way. Keeps his days simple, and his head free of worries when he’s lying in bed at night.

It changed a bit when the dog showed up, of course. Jesse had nearly shit himself that night when he’d realized he wasn’t alone on the porch for his usual middle of the night smoke, but turns out it wasn’t a bear or a wolf (though it’d certainly seemed big enough to be either in the dark), just a stray who’d found his house as a place to sleep for the night.

Damn nice looking dog, too. Jesse doesn’t know jack about shit but this one looks expensive, completely glossy black all over with a handsome face and long elegant legs. Poor thing was limping pretty bad at first, but after a few days that got better on its own. Jesse’s truly thankful because the one time he was really set on getting the dog over to a vet he’d nearly gotten his face chewed off, so he’d given up that idea. He’d also figured somebody must be looking for such a high quality animal, but when he’d called around to the shelter and the feed store in town the ladies there told him nobody was looking for a black dog. And, the way the dog looked at him while he was on the phone made him feel downright guilty, like the thing knew he was trying to get rid of him. He’d given up on that idea too.

The dog wasn’t trouble, anyhow. Lazy, mostly. It spent the majority of the time lounging around on his porch or in the yard, or lately on Jesse’s couch. He’d spent about a week bribing it with regular meals and snacks before the thing would deign to enter the house, and now he just leaves the screen open a crack all day, otherwise he’s constantly getting up to stop it from scratching the shit out of his door. The dog seems to manage getting himself in and out well enough, and more often than not Jesse will come home from work to find the thing all stretched out on the sofa.

Once he’d even come in the door and the dog was laying there with the TV on, like any of his old jobless roommates, which had been funny as hell though Jesse hadn’t remembered leaving it on when he’d left. The dog seems to enjoy it, anyway, so now Jesse leaves it on while he’s gone too.

It’s already been nearly a month that the dog has stuck around, and Jesse finds he enjoys the extra company more than he would’ve thought. If anyone had ever asked if he wanted a dog before this he would’ve said no, too much work, but it’s been pretty easy so far. The thing eats him out of house and home, of course. Even when Jesse finally bit the bullet and bought a big sack of proper dog food, with all the vitamins and nutrients a dog needs as the lady at the feed store had assured him, the dog still ignores it and gets all interested in whatever Jesse’s eating until Jesse gives in and shares. Not only that, but the dog sidles into the kitchen every morning and sits and stares while Jesse cooks until he hands over a plate of eggs for breakfast. Damn thing was spoiled to hell, but Jesse understands. His food is a lot more appetizing than the kibble, after all.

It is a big difference now from how the dog had behaved at first. He’d been as shy as a wild animal back then, refusing to let Jesse get closer than a few feet before the fangs came out and he started growling. It was only this last week that he’d begun tolerating a pat on the head, and now Jesse is proud to say he’s been allowed to rub those fluffy ears he’s been tempted by since he first laid eyes on them. Jesse’s also been generously accepted as guest on his own couch while the dog is using it.

So lately he spends his nights with a constant companion. He and the dog eat dinner at the same time, and watch TV together after Jesse is done with his shower. Jesse talks to the dog a lot too, just since it’s hard not to. The dog is so smart that half the time Jesse swears he understands, and the other half he probably decides on his own not to listen. It really is like having a roommate again, just one that is aloof and a little judgmental and gives him the silent treatment all the time.

Actually that reminds Jesse of some of his ex-girlfriends. Though the dog doesn’t spend his money or drink his beer, so practically speaking it’s even better.

This weekend looks to be more of the same. In the morning Jesse borrows his neighbor’s mower for his yard in exchange for doing the neighbor’s yard too, and trimming back some bushes. The dog watches him sweat in the sun for a couple hours while sprawled in the nice shade of the porch, and then hops up to follow him inside when he’s finally done and ready to make lunch.

The neighbor’s wife gave him another hotdish as thanks for the yard work, telling him once again that he needed to clean his act up so he could get himself a girl who could cook already, and maybe think about going to church once in a while. He’s grateful for the food, not so much the advice, but the dog never seems happy to be served up any of the neighbor’s cooking so Jesse sticks it in the freezer and gets out the last of the fixings for sandwiches instead.

After that he takes a shower and changes into some of his house clothes. He goes out on the back steps with his almost-empty case of beer to enjoy the nice day while smoking and trying to get the dog to fetch an old rubber ball he’d found in the street yesterday. The dog is wholly uninterested.

“You’re one lazy shit,” Jesse accuses him, returning to the porch after fetching the ball himself for a third time when the dog refused to go after it. “I bet your momma named you after that book, what’s it called? The one about the slow dog.” The dog watches him somewhat balefully as Jesse tosses the ball from one hand to the other, then up onto the porch awning so he can catch it when it rolls off. After a few rounds of that he remembers the name of the book, snapping his fingers and pointing at the dog. “Pokey Puppy. That’s you.”

The dog rolls onto its side, facing away now, and Jesse laughs out loud. Damn dog is even smart enough to know when he’s making bad jokes.

He gets bored of throwing the ball to himself soon enough, and chucks it out into the yard before sitting down for a fresh beer and another smoke.

“Maybe I should call you somethin’,” he says while lighting up, then blows a stream of smoke skyward. “Can’t think of anything that fits, though. Pretty thing like you should have a pretty name, and I don’t know a lot of those. Unless you can tell me?” He rolls his head to look over his shoulder at the dog, whose eyebrows twitch as he looks back at him. Jesse cracks a grin and reaches over to ruffle at his ears.

“Well whatever, I’ll keep callin’ you dog until you can come up with somethin’ better.” Jesse sighs, then finishes off the last of his smoke and gets up to throw the butt away, tossing his empty beer can in the bin while he’s at it. “C’mon sweetheart, it’s gettin’ hot out. Let’s go see what’s on TV.”

Nothing much, it turns out, but Jesse is fine just putting his feet up on the coffee table and dozing to the drone of weekend cooking shows. The dog hops up on the couch with him, shoving Jesse over to one side so he can flop across the rest of it, though his hind legs are nearly falling off the other end.

“You’re too big for this,” Jesse grumbles, and the dog grumbles back at him but finally settles down with his chin propped on Jesse’s knee. Jesse lets his hand rest on the dog’s head, idly combing through his fur and scratching behind his ears. He’s glad the dog has started growing used to that sort of treatment lately, like they’re really starting to get along.

“You know, I think I’d like to keep you around,” he says offhand. “Never thought I’d want a dog, but I never met one as smart and good lookin’ as you.”

The dog hefts a sigh, then nudges at him because he’d stopped petting. Jesse grins halfway and continues. “Yeah I think if you had an owner, and he ever came knockin’, I’d tell him I’ve never seen that big, black, lazy beast in my life. He can go get a new dog.”

The dog suddenly sits up then, and looks right at him.

“Like the sound of that, hm?” Jesse says to it.

Apparently not, because next the dog hops off the couch and stands there staring at him even more intently, to the point where Jesse feels a little uncomfortable.

“What? You want to go out?” he asks, confused now. “Did I shut the door?” He starts to get up and go check, but before he goes anywhere the dog is- the dog is standing up on two feet and-

“What the fuck,” Jesse says in a very small voice.

There is a man there now, right where the dog had been. The dog had just turned into a man - a naked man - right in front of his goddamn eyes, and now the man is leaning over him, boxing him in with both arms propped on the back of the couch, one to either side of his head. He’s tall and dark with a black beard and hair, powerfully built, beautiful really, but naked, very naked, and his eyes pin Jesse in place like a bug on cardstock.

Jesse stares up at him. He thinks he might be having a stroke.

“Hello,” the man says in a low, rasping voice.

Jesse is too dumbstruck to say anything back.

The man smirks down at him. “So, what you were saying. About keeping me around. I thought that sounded alright, actually.”

“Uh,” Jesse manages to squeeze out. “You’re not a dog.”

“Only sometimes,” the man says. His dark eyes are alight with amusement at that. “Thought you should know what you’ve really gotten into. And it was getting boring, not being able to talk back.”

“I’m. What- _what_ the fuck,” Jesse says. “What the fuck?”

The man snorts, and finally stands back, freeing Jesse to scramble off the couch if he weren’t still frozen to it. Unfortunately he can’t seem to get his body on the same page yet.

“Just stay there for a second,” the man tells him. “Let me get dressed, then I’ll explain.”

Jesse stares at him, and keeps staring as the guy saunters right over to his bedroom and disappears through the open door. _What the fuck_. His heart is ready to beat its way out of his chest and he has no idea what he’s supposed to do in this situation, but he honestly just watched a dog turn into a goddamn human being that _talked to him_ and that probably means he’s going insane.

Jesus fucking Christ, the lady next door was right. He should’ve stopped drinking and gone to church. Jesse scrubs his face with his hands and then just sits there like that, eyes closed, until he hears the creak of footsteps over his floor again.

“Are you panicking?” that low voice asks.

“I’ve got no fuckin’ idea,” Jesse mutters from behind his hands. “What’re the signs of a stroke.”

“Not this.”

His hands are pulled gently away from his face, then. Jesse doesn’t want to open his eyes, but he’s also scared of keeping them shut. He looks up to see that at least the man is dressed now in one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants he’d shrunk in the wash. The t-shirt is a little too small, stretched across all the muscle this stranger is packing.

“It’s alright,” the man says. “You’ve been good to me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The words sound like reassurance, but it sends a chill down to Jesse’s gut. He hadn’t even considered that yet - and this guy looks like he could fuck him up pretty fast. Jesse swallows, but it gets stuck on the knot in his throat.

The man sighs, and it’s exactly the same exasperated sound the _fucking dog_ would make. Jesse barely stops himself from laughing, afraid he’d turn hysterical.

“I’m going to get you another drink,” the man says finally. “Come on. Up.”

Jesse doesn’t protest as he’s pulled from the couch and walked down the hall into the kitchen, where the man sits him at the table before going to the cabinet where Jesse keeps the bourbon.

“How’d you know about that,” Jesse says blankly, when the guy plunks the bottle down in front of him. He tries to avoid the hard stuff these days, and is fairly positive he hasn’t had any in months.

“You’re gone a lot, and I’ve spent three weeks in your house with nothing better to do. I had a look around.”

Seems true enough with the way the guy helps himself to a pair of glasses out of the cabinet by the sink, and then opens the fridge for a cold can of beer. Almost like he lives here.

“My name is Gabriel,” the man begins, as he unscrews the cap from the whiskey and pours a several glugs into each glass. “I’m a shapeshifter, and my other shape is a dog. That’s about it, really.” He sets down the bottle, and pops open the beer, putting that next to the glass closer to Jesse. “Drink the shot first,” he orders, sitting down across the table and taking the other glass for himself.

It’s more like three shots, but Jesse mutely throws it back, and then takes the beer, emptying half of it in a few gulps. Gabriel, if that’s really his name, is already refilling their glasses.

“Any questions?” he asks Jesse.

Jesse shakes his head no. But. “Well. Okay. Say I’m not dreamin’ then, or I don’t know. Dyin’ or anything. And you really are that dog, and that dog really was you. Is this like. You were cursed by a witch, or something?”

“No,” Gabriel says dryly. “I’ve always been able to do this.”

“You could’ve changed back whenever you wanted?”

Gabriel pauses, his glass held to his lips. “Yes.” He drinks, and Jesse toys with the bottom of his own glass, trying to move past the fact that the _dog_ had changed into a _guy_ and now they were drinking bourbon in his kitchen.

“So. Then, what’re you doin’ here?”

“I found your house and needed a safe spot to rest. Wasn’t planning on getting caught, and wasn’t planning on fucking up my leg. Didn’t have much of a choice after that.”

“Okay. But you got better, so… how come you didn’t leave then?”

Gabriel gives a fluid shrug, looking so unbothered by the questions that Jesse feels a little ashamed for being so suspicious. But goddamnit, he’s supposed to just take this shit at face value? _Shapeshifters_??

“I wanted to lay low for a while. And like I said, you treated me well.” He looks up to meet Jesse’s eyes then, his gaze so dark, and warm after the alcohol. “I’ll admit, I’ve gotten fond of you.”

Jesse feels heat rise to the back of his neck. How in the world had he gotten here. He’d thought he’d rescued a dog and it turned out to be… this. That smug, lazy dog was a _person_.

“Christ,” he says under his breath, thinking back to all the stupid shit he’d done and said in front of what he’d thought was a dumb animal. He takes the second shot of bourbon, then pushes the glass back for a third even though he already feels the liquor loosening him up from his stomach outward. He’s a lightweight now, too used to a steady flow of low-proof booze all night instead of straight whiskey hitting his gut with very little to soften the blow. Gabriel thankfully obliges, pouring him another drink without comment. _Bless him_ , Jesse thinks, _whatever the fuck he is_.

“Alright, so you’re not really a dog,” Jesse says, after he’d gotten his hands on his glass and emptied it. Again. “An’ you’ve been watchin’ me, an’ goin’ through my house this whole time.”

“Only because there was nothing better to do,” Gabriel says. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Jesse says blithely. He’s not sure what part of that he was supposed to be offended by, but oh well. “Y’know that one time, when I got home and the TV was on already? That was you, wasn’t it. I didn’t forget to turn it off before I left, did I?”

“That was me.”

“Knew it,” Jesse says, vindicated at last. He holds out his glass and steels himself for his last question. “Okay, one more an’ I’ll believe whatever you say. But just tell me first. Are you sayin’ all this ‘cause you’re gonna go now? ‘Cause if you’re gettin’ me drunk I don’t wanna wake up and think you ran away.”

Gabriel seems to consider him for a moment, swirling the liquor around in his glass before he answers, slowly. Choosing his words carefully. “I’d like to stay, if that’s alright with you.”

“But?” Sounds like there should be a ‘but’.

Gabriel’s mouth ticks up, half smirking. “But I’ll still be relying on your generosity.”

Jesse snorts, and shakes his head. “Nah that’s- I don’t care ‘bout that, you can stay s’long as you want.”

“Thank you,” Gabriel says. His fingers are tapping at the base of his glass, but his eyes are soft, relaxed. “I wish there had been a.. less surprising way to tell you about all this.”

“Ah, well,” Jesse says to him, “that’s how it goes I guess. One day I got a dog and the next he’s a person, happens t’everybody. Hey, you wan’ a beer? I’m gonna get another beer.” He pushes his chair back and holds onto the table when he gets up to keep from swaying. Fuck, they’d made quite a dent in that bottle in less than five minutes.

He opens the fridge, but then Gabriel says, “Let me,” from right next to him, already grabbing two cans in one hand, and catching Jesse by the elbow with his other. “Why don’t we go back to the other room.”

“Yeah alright,” Jesse says, though he’s already getting steered back down the hall and deposited on the couch. Gabriel sits down next to him, opens a beer and puts it in his hand before getting to his own. Jesse admires the open can. “Y’know, you’re already nicer than the dog.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Gabriel says as he grabs the TV remote and turns up the volume before changing the channel.

“Nah, aren’t you nice?”

Gabriel drops the remote on the cushion between them, and puts one heel up on the coffee table. “I’m very nice.”

“Well that’s good,” Jesse says. He puts his feet up too and sinks low into the couch. “Real good. Though, you were a good dog too, don’t get me wrong. But I never had a dog before, so I dunno. You didn’t cause me any trouble, anyway, that was nice.” He turns to look at Gabriel and finds himself already being idly watched. That ties his tongue, but just for a second. Damn this guy is a helluva lot prettier than the dog ever was. “But, now that you’re not a dog anymore, you wanna get out of the house sometime? I mean, you been cooped up here for almost a month and I got work tomorrow but after that if there’s somewhere you wanna go or anythin’—”

“I’d rather not,” Gabriel says.

“Ah, right, layin’ low.” Jesse is the one who ends up dropping eye contact, then. He fiddles with the pop tab on his beer, watching it bending back and forth between his fingers. “Jus’, ah. Are you runnin’ from somethin’?” He doesn’t know if this is a good thing to know, or if he should just let it lie, but it does seem important if Gabriel really plans on sticking around.

He can feel Gabriel’s level gaze not faltering. But Gabriel only says, “I’ll tell you about it later, when you might actually remember.”

“Nah, nevermind,” Jesse says with a dismissive flap of his hand to clear the air. “I know what that’s like. Been there, got the t-shirt an’ all. And nobody’s found me either so maybe you came to the right place. Ha.”

Gabriel hums, and Jesse decides to shut the fuck up for a while instead of running his mouth like a stupid drunk.

That doesn’t last long. Gabriel shouldn’t mind, he’s been around long enough to know Jesse can’t keep quiet when somebody’s there to listen, whether it’s a dog or a person doesn’t actually matter too much. He doesn’t really talk about anything though, just what’s on TV, an endless tennis game and commercials. And while Gabriel listens, making the occasional noise of acknowledgement, for the most part he’s not much more talkative than the dog when it comes to replying to Jesse’s mindless chatter. Besides getting up to go to the kitchen for more beer every now and again, he doesn’t interrupt. Feels familiar enough that Jesse starts to forget to find it strange that Gabriel is there at all.

“How ‘bout dinner?” Jesse asks when a good while has passed, once he notices the sunlight has become orange outside the window. He’s feeling a nice even buzz by now, and what he’d really like is just another drink to join the formation of empty cans that have lined up on his coffee table, but it’s about the time the dog would start boring holes in his head with that hungry look so he imagines Gabriel would appreciate the offer.

“Alright,” Gabriel says. Then, “But you didn’t go to the store today.”

“Huh? Oh fuck.” He’d meant to, since it was his day off, and that’s what he normally did on his day off, but he’d clean forgotten all about it. He turns and squints at Gabriel. “You fed me a buncha bourbon, that’s why.”

Gabriel looks back at him out the corner of his eye. He’s got his head propped up on his knuckles, elbow resting on the couch arm, and his long legs stretched out to Jesse’s coffee table next to his own collection of empty cans. Cool as you please without a hint of apology anywhere to be found, and he doesn’t seem inclined to make a suggestion for what Jesse should do about his empty fridge.

Jesse huffs a laugh. Shit, really was just like the dog. “Alright, I’ll order somethin’, but all I can get is pizza out here.” He hefts himself off the couch, trying to remember where’d he’d left the menu with restaurant’s number on it, and the last place he’d seen his phone. “What you want on it?” he remembers to ask on his way to the kitchen.

“Anything,” is the reply. “No artichoke.”

“The fuck kinda shit is that for a pizza,” Jesse mutters to himself, already too far away to direct the question where it belongs. He finds his phone and calls in the order along with the vague directions needed to find his street from the highway, and then grabs his pack of smokes and goes out to the back steps to light up, catching the screen from banging shut behind him so the dog won’t get stuck inside before he remembers - no more dog. He leaves it open anyway.

After a minute of watching the sunset blooming behind the trees he hears the door squeak open again, and he cranes his neck around to look behind him. Gabriel stands in the doorway, looking over the neighbor’s house before he decides to come the rest of the way out.

He gestures to Jesse’s pack of cigarettes. “Can I get one of those?”

“Sure, help yourself,” Jesse obliges, and then has to shuffle over to make room as Gabriel comes over to sit right next to him on the steps.

“You’ve got a nice set up out here,” he says, once his cigarette is lit and he’s had a long drag off it.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Jesse agrees. Even if it takes a pizza over an hour to get there, and the delivery drivers get lost half the time. “Glad you like it.”

“Don’t you get bored by yourself?” Gabriel asks.

“Nah. It’s relaxin’.”

“I guess so,” Gabriel says, then sighs and their shoulders brush as he leans back on one arm. Jesse tries not to obviously stare, but damn, his borrowed shirt is riding up Gabriel’s flat stomach and it’s distracting. The guy was just straight up attractive - which made all this seem even more like he’s stuck in some kind of fairytale but at this point all Jesse can do is go with it and try not to think too much. Mysterious as he may be, Gabriel said he was fond of him and maybe that was true, or maybe Jesse was just a sucker who lived in a convenient spot out in the country away from any major towns. Either way Jesse doubts he’s actually going to stick around that much longer.

Then Gabriel raises the cigarette to his mouth for another drag and Jesse quickly flicks his gaze away to the sunset again.

They sit around on the porch for a while, working through Jesse’s pack of cigarettes while Jesse gets into speculating aloud about the little bits of small town gossip he picks up from the lady next door and the guys at work. Gabriel doesn’t have much to say about any of that, but Jesse is going into work tomorrow and he’s figuring out some observations to make.

At some point he realizes Gabriel has gone still and quiet, even more so than usual, and then a moment after that the sound of a car coming down his dead end road reaches him.

“Oh, pizza,” he says and pulls himself up off the steps by the porch railing. “I’ll get it. Wanna eat out here?”

Gabriel just grunts at him, so he takes it as a yes.

They go inside after eating, once it gets dark, and settle back in front of the TV. Gabriel takes charge of the remote again and Jesse lets him, considering that he’d been the one picking the channels for the last few weeks, so first they watch the evening news and then some history channel documentary about the Cold War. When Jesse mentions CSI is coming on he gets ignored.

It’s not much longer before he’s nodding off, eyelids sliding shut during the commercials until he catches himself and sits up again.

“I think I’m goin’ to bed,” he says fuzzily, after the fifth time it happens. “You gonna be alright out here?”

Gabriel gives him a look. “Actually. I’m a little tired of sleeping on the couch.”

“Oh,” Jesse says. That’s understandable, and now that he thinks about it Gabriel would have a hard time actually fitting on the couch now. The dog had just barely been small enough, but there was no way he could have all those arms and legs and still be comfortable. Jesse never slept on the couch either, besides conking out where he sat before waking up with a stiff neck and stumbling over to his bed. “Right. Uh. Well, you’re welcome to share, if that’s okay?”

“Sure,” Gabriel says, and to Jesse’s surprise he immediately switches off the TV and follows right behind him into the bedroom.

But that’s fine. Getting undressed in the dark and sliding into bed together is fine. Gabriel is quiet and there’s just enough room in Jesse’s bed that they don’t overlap, so it should be fine.

Until Gabriel rolls over and lines himself up along Jesse’s back, one arm sliding up to come wrap around his side, and Jesse’s head goes completely blank.

Then Gabriel nuzzles the back of his neck. _Oh_.

“Uh,” Jesse says.

“No?” Gabriel murmurs, his warm lips and hot breath skimming over Jesse’s skin, setting all the short hairs of his neck on end. Those fingers are starting to do very nice things while they’re dragging down his chest.

“It’s not. Really. A ‘no’, but just—” Jesse’s voice hitches when Gabriel tugs him back by the hip and puts a knee between his legs, and his first reaction is to grab at his pillow. The rest of him rocks back on its own. Oh, yeah, and that’s a dick pressing full on his ass.

“But?” Gabriel prompts him. He’s stopped moving lower, fingertips just brushing under the waistband of Jesse’s underwear, but he strokes through the trail of hair on his belly with a thumb and lights his nerves up tingling.

“You. Um. Where’s this all comin’ from, exactly?”

“I’ve spent a long time watching you go around half naked without being able to do anything about it,” Gabriel says, his voice so low it’s nearly a purr. “And I know for a fact you’re not fucking anyone else, so-”

“Well hang on, it’s jus’ a dry spell.”

“Right,” Gabriel says, and slips his hand down to Jesse’s very interested dick.

Jesse stops talking and shimmies out of his boxers real quick after that, and he can feel Gabriel smirking against his neck before he’s rolled onto his stomach and Gabriel is pawing through his bedside table drawer, coming back with lubed fingers that ease oh-so-nicely into him one at a time as Jesse’s hips twitch up and his knees slide apart on the mattress.

“Fuck,” is the next thing Jesse says. Moans, actually, into the pillow he’s clutching, because Gabriel doesn’t wait or ask again whether Jesse is absolutely sure he’s ready, there’s no pause at all when he switches out his fingers for his dick. He’s not exactly gentle either, working him open in steady strokes each deeper than the last until he goes still, all the way inside, while Jesse can do nothing but squirm around on him.

And Jesse does squirm, trying to fit the breathtaking amount of cock stuffing him full, but only for a few moments. Then Gabriel presses him firmly down, flat onto the bed, to fuck him half to death.

“Christ,” Jesse mumbles afterwards, still face down in the pillow. He’d come sometime in there, an orgasm that had been pounded out of him inch by gasping inch. Gabriel doesn’t seem to be much better off; he’d come half over Jesse’s back and half on his ass, then slumped down heavily on top of the whole mess and tucked his face into the side of Jesse’s neck, seeming happy enough to stay there and use Jesse as his pillow.

Jesse fumbles to turn his head and get some air, finally. Gabriel is warm and very heavy draped over him this way, and getting sticky. Jesse doesn’t have the strength to move out of the wet spot under his stomach either. He settles for falling asleep dirty and exhausted, and snuggled into the mattress by the best and most surprising lay he’s had in his life.

He wakes up on his back, arms and legs sprawled in most directions, and first notices Gabriel is still at least halfway on top of him in this new position. He’s clearly more awake than him, too, and already kissing leisurely at his neck.

“Mm,” Jesse says, stretching out long before relaxing and letting one arm flop across Gabriel’s wide shoulders. He hasn’t been woken up this nicely ever. Except- He blinks at the sun streaming through his bedroom window. It’s suspiciously bright and clear. “Wha’time issit?”

“You’ve got half an hour,” Gabriel answers, then pushes one of his legs to the side and climbs into the space between them.

Jesse lets him, trying to overcome the distraction to figure out how much time he’ll need for the bare minimum of washing up and getting breakfast. It’s a lost cause - he’ll just eat on the way. He hooks his leg behind Gabriel’s knee and uses the arm he’s got around his shoulder to pull him down, and Gabriel allows that easily, meeting his open mouth at the same time he starts working a hand on Jesse’s stiff dick. God bless him.

He’s not late for work, but only because Gabriel had caught him in the bathroom and put his boots in one hand and a cold piece of pizza in the other before pushing him out of the house towards his truck. He’d had just enough time to scrub the spunk off himself and swig some mouthwash, so that’s fine. Still, how nice to have somebody give him breakfast after fucking him silly twice in eight hours. He could get used to this sort of treatment.

Once he gets in to work the foreman tells him to wipe the stupid look off his face, and Jesse knows exactly what kind of too-pleased grin he’s got plastered on. Nobody would fuckin’ believe it either, so it’s easy not to say anything. As the day goes on though, he’s stuck thinking about Gabriel back at the house. He hopes there’s enough pizza still left in the fridge for him - he’ll have to remember to stop by the store on the way home. And hopefully Gabriel won’t get too bored with nothing to do besides sit around and watch TV. Jesse didn’t even have any magazines or anything, except for a few tatty paperbacks that people had loaned to him and never asked about again. But Gabriel must’ve found and read those already, if he was at all interested. Jesse really should’ve asked if there’s anything Gabriel wants him to get for tomorrow, books or movies or something, and he kicks himself for not leaving Gabriel his phone in case he needed anything.

He tries to reassure himself that this is nothing new for Gabriel, no matter how it feels it to him. He’s been leaving the dog at home alone for weeks and that’s been fine.

But it’s a downward train of thought. There’s no arguing that things have _changed_. There was always the possibility that Gabriel has decided enough is enough. Maybe he’d gotten all the food and relaxation he needed, and gotten Jesse into bed for a couple rounds. Maybe that was his parting gift, no matter what he’d said about sticking around. And actually, hadn’t he said he _wanted_ to stick around? Not that he would?

Jesse can’t remember. By the time he’s driving home, with fresh groceries on the seat next to him, he’s well on his way to nervous and talking himself into not being too upset if Gabriel’s nowhere to be found when he gets there. It’d only been just a few weeks, anyhow, there was no reason to expect anything. Shit, maybe Jesse’d wake up any minute now to the dog grumbling at him for breakfast and find out the last day had all been one really long and really strange wet dream.

He finally pulls up to the house and climbs out of the truck, slamming the door shut behind him and walking up the front steps with a heavy feeling sinking his stomach. The house will be empty, he’s sure. The windows are dark and the only sound is the bugs buzzing in the trees as he gets his keys in the lock and opens the front door, hardly wanting to look as he steps inside.

But he does, and the first thing he sees is the dog flopped out across the couch like a log. The dog rolls up to look at him, jumps down and trots over, and then stands up and in a blink it’s Gabriel there in front of him instead, real as anything. and naked as a bird.

Jesse cracks a smile, a little embarrassed at how shaky it feels. “Hey there, gorgeous,” he says, as Gabriel hooks a finger under the hem of his shirt and tugs him a step closer, almost enough to kiss.

“Welcome back,” Gabriel says. “Did you bring anything to eat?”

Jesse huffs a laugh. “Yeah, it’s in the truck.”

“Well go get it,” Gabriel tells him, but instead of letting Jesse turn around he reaches to shut the front door behind him then leans him against it for a kiss.

 _Ah_ , he could really get used to this, even if it is too good to believe.

Gabriel shares the bed with him again that night. He’s still there when Jesse wakes that morning, and sees him off to work after Jesse makes breakfast for both of them. He’s still there when Jesse gets home again. And again, he gives Jesse a warm welcome at the door.

It doesn’t stop feeling like a dream with the way Jesse finds himself stumbling from bed to the shower to work each day, and then getting dragged back into bed about as soon as he walks through the front door. The man had appetites, and apparently not the least bit of shame in seeing them fed. Jesse can’t honestly complain, and after several days straight of all that he’s resigned himself to a constant smear of fingertip bruises on his hips and kiss-marks on his shoulders.

A full week passes and he’s started to think maybe Gabriel really does intend on staying right here for the foreseeable future. It’s Jesse’s day off again and he’s gotten absolutely nothing done in favor of a long morning spent in bed, the last of the week’s eggs and bacon for breakfast, and lounging around inside the house and then out on the porch once Sunday afternoon TV loses its charm. Currently they’re waiting for another pizza delivery - Jesse had underestimated how much more food they’d need once they started having very spectacular sex a couple times a day.

“What do you do anyway?” Gabriel is asking him while they’re lazing on the back steps, looking down at Jesse who’s been slowly transitioning from sitting with him to slumping halfway down the stairs, only keeping himself upright with an arm hooked over Gabriel’s leg. “You never talk about your job.”

Jesse laughs, first. “You’re only wonderin’ about this now?” he asks back, and Gabriel jostles his leg to almost make him lose his precarious position. Jesse just squeezes tighter, and says, “There’s not much to talk about, honey. I’m workin’ at that new mall they’re puttin’ up in town. They got me drivin’ the trucks around, y’know, haulin’ dirt an’ rocks. Real fun stuff.”

“You’d rather do something else?”

“Eh, nah. Pays well enough, I can’t complain.”

Gabriel hums and takes a drink from his beer, then cocks his head, listening to something.

“Pizza?” Jesse asks him. Sure enough, next he hears a car rolling up the road, and he clambers to his feet, dusting grass off the back of his shorts. “I’ll get it.”

He goes through the house to the front door, reaching it just as the driver knocks.

“Hi,” he says, smiling to the tall blond man standing on his front stoop. Boy, what’s a guy that looks like this doing delivering pizzas? Jesse looks down - the guy ain’t actually holding a pizza box.

“Hello,” the guy says. “I think you may have found my dog.”

Jesse goes still, looking hard at the man’s clear blue eyes and finding no hint of what he might really know. “Must’ve heard wrong, I don’t got any dogs.”

The man studies him back coolly, and glances past him into the house. Jesse fights the urge to close the door on his face.

“Are you sure?” the guy says. “The shelter says it was you who called in, about a month ago.”

“Nope, wasn’t me,” Jesse says. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Oh,” the guy says. Jesse feels a split second of relief, and then the guy has his hand on the door and is pushing right in.

“Hey! What the fuck’re you doin’,” Jesse protests, but he’s firmly moved to the side like he weighs less than nothing.

“Excuse me, but I’m going to check for myself.”

“I told you I don’t got your goddamn dog,” Jesse snaps at him, alarm bells going off all in his head as the guy scans the sitting room and keeps moving down the hallway with military-like efficiency, heading straight for the back door and ignoring Jesse entirely..

The guy steps outside and right behind him Jesse’s heart jumps to his throat when he sees the dog just at the edge of the trees.

“Gabriel!” the stranger barks across the yard. “Don’t you dare! Get back here _right now!_ ”

The dog has stopped where it was, one foreleg raised in mid-step. And Jesse knows it’s too late for him to run now; they’re as good as caught.

After a long, torturous handful of seconds, the dog turns around and lopes slowly back towards the house. Gabriel transforms upon reaching the steps, bending down to scoop up the pair of Jesse’s gym shorts he’d been wearing just a minute ago.

He straightens up, at last meeting the blond’s eyes. “Hi, Jackie.”

“Don’t fucking ‘ _Hi Jackie_ ’ me,” the stranger growls at him. Then he turns sharply on his heel, making Jesse startle away as he stalks back into the house.

Jesse watches him go, then turns and murmurs, “Who’s that? Are you gonna be okay?” to Gabriel, who is sliding on the shorts with a grimace.

“That’s Jack,” Gabriel says quietly, “My husband.” And then he follows this Jack guy inside.

“What the fuck,” Jesse says to himself. He goes inside too, eventually.

The tension in his house feels like a tangible thing, the air thick as he approaches the sitting room to find Gabriel and Jack both standing there silently. Jesse gets the sense of a conversation having been clipped off the moment he came inside.

Jack is the one who speaks first. “Well. If you’re all finished here.” His words are tight with reigned in anger; Jesse feels the hairs rising on the back of his neck in response. He looks to Gabriel, who is steadfastly staring at the wall, arms crossed over his bare chest.

“Hey,” Jesse murmurs, and it takes all his courage for just that one word. But Gabriel only glances at him, and gives a short shake of his head, before he’s turning and walking away, out the front door. Leaving Jesse alone in the room with Jack.

Jack sighs, then, and the animosity ebbs away like a plug was pulled. He rubs at his jaw, looking first at the door Gabriel had left through, and then right at Jesse. “We have to go now,” he says stiffly. “But thank you. For looking after him this long.”

“Oh,” Jesse says.

Jack makes to leave, then stops in the doorway, digging into his back pocket. He slides out a wallet. “Ah. Gabe said he owes you, for food and.. everything,” he says.

Jesse just stands there dumbly as a folded wad of cash is placed in his hand.

Jack looks at him for another moment, inscrutable. “Don’t tell anyone about us,” he says at last, and then he’s gone.

Jesse stands there, watching through the window as the two of them climb into a sleek blank sedan parked in his driveway and drive away, crunching through the gravel back to the road. He looks down. Jack had given him hundreds, maybe ten times as much as he’d spent on Gabriel this last month.

He tosses all of it on the coffee table, not caring where it really lands, and goes into the kitchen to ease the feeling of his world turning over once again with a drink.

 

 

Jack is so brilliantly angry that it takes him nearly a week before he notices Gabriel is sulking. That sets him off again - he had expected a few days of Gabe’s sour mood after getting dragged home before he had deigned to return on his own, that was nothing new. But to still be drifting around from room to room, listless and sullen, when _he_ had been the one who had run off and shacked up with the first nice piece of ass he’d found.

Which would have been understandable on its own, except for the fact that Gabriel had spent an _entire month_ there instead of being caught in some kind of mortal peril, or dead in a ditch as Jack had increasingly considered as more time had passed without a word or a sign or anything at all to indicate that Gabriel planned on coming back in the near future… Well, it takes Jack another week to tame his frustration down to a manageable level and seriously consider what might be wrong.

It does help that upon his return Gabriel had dutifully smoothed down all the feathers he’d ruffled, grimly making amends where they were owed so that Jack was no longer left to come up with any apologies for why his partner was nowhere to be found after that complete mess Gabriel had left behind. Territory disputes between shapeshifters were tricky enough to handle when there were multiple parties involved, and while it wasn’t exactly their responsibility to mediate it sometimes couldn’t be avoided.

Still, it wasn’t a good look when one of the mediators wound up breaking someone’s jaw during negotiations, whether they deserved it or not. Gabriel hadn’t been entirely wrong to skip out for a while to let everything settle down after that. Just not _for a month._

But now it’s taken care of, at last, and normalcy could be resumed as soon as Gabriel dealt with whatever’s causing him to spend the majority of his time in his other form, going for long aimless walks and coming back to sprawl on the floor and sigh.

Jack knows it’s not because him, or at least not directly. If Gabriel thought he had been unjustly slighted he would never pass by the opportunity for a good argument, especially with Jack. And Jack had given him plenty of opportunities lately, in case there was some grievance they needed to sort through.

But Gabriel hasn’t taken the bait, so it must be something else. And that’s something Jack won’t be happy with until Gabriel is happy.

“Alright,” he finally says to Gabriel one night, after he’s certain his anger is fully extinguished with begrudging sympathy growing in its place. “What’s wrong?”

He’s got Gabriel temporarily cornered in the car on the way home from an evening with friends, and while Gabriel had come back to his old self during dinner and drinks and long conversation he’d slipped back to brooding as soon as they were alone.

Gabriel doesn’t answer right away. From his unmoved slouch in the passenger seat it doesn’t even look like he’s heard the question, and Jack expects he’s planned on keeping it to himself indefinitely.

Jack sighs. Well, he’s got a good enough guess to go off of anyway. “Come on, you’re making me depressed. Is it about that kid? What was his name, Jesse?”

Gabriel makes an irritated sound at him, frowning out the window. He taps his finger against his knee, and finally says, “I don’t like how we left things.”

“How did we leave things?”

“Badly,” Gabriel says. “He’s probably drinking himself to death now.”

“Over us? Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“He didn’t have anything good going on in his life to begin with,” Gabriel mutters.

“Ah yes, and now that the great Gabriel Reyes is gone what’s left to live for,” Jack sighs, and gets a sharp look in return. Jack can’t help rolling his eyes. The great Gabriel Reyes did not enjoy being _teased_ either, no matter how well deserved. “Sorry, did you already forget doing the exact same thing to me last month?”

“ _You_ understand. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Go see him, then. Maybe he’ll understand too.”

Gabriel huffs, like that’s so ridiculous to consider. But it’s not. While it’s not exactly common knowledge that people like them exist, or who they are, or what their lives are like, it’s not a damning secret either. Lots of humans could be trusted to keep quiet, and from what Gabriel had explained of his little month long vacation, Jesse McCree seemed to be one of the good ones.

“What? I’m not mad,” Jack says, then quickly adds, “Anymore,” because Gabriel is already opening his mouth to dispute _that_ particular item.

“I’m not staying away for the sake of your delicate sensibilities.”

“Then why?”

“Because…” Gabriel starts, and stops, looking pinched. “It wouldn’t matter.”

Interesting. Jack waits for more, and Gabriel eventually finishes the thought.

“He’s probably pissed.”

“Oh,” Jack says, suspicions now well confirmed. “This is you being _noble_. You’ve got it bad.”

“Shut it,” Gabriel mutters at him.

Jack hums, and allows the topic to drop for the moment.

But he doesn’t stop thinking about it. Gabriel doesn’t bring it up again, even though it’s certainly eating at him despite his decision to remain long-suffering. And it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Clearly Jack will have to do what he can on his own to get this matter taken care of.

 _Should’ve checked the weather first, though,_ he thinks to himself, when all of that leads to him trotting up a soaking wet country road on one rainy night. He reaches the house he still remembers well from the amount of effort it’d taken him to find the first time, bounds up the steps, scratches at the door, and waits.

No answer. He scratches again, considering he may have to go around back and let himself in if this doesn’t work. But that would be impolite, and against the spirit of his visit. He starts clawing at the door.

Eventually he hears movement from inside, so he stops and waits. The door opens, washing the front porch with light, and he sees the distinct change in the young man behind it as his expression goes from hopeful to confused.

Jack knows what he must look like, soaked to the bone and normally white fur half brown with mud. He shakes off a good deal of the rain that’s collected on his fur first, though when he stand up he’s still dripping and spattered in mud up to his chest. “Sorry,” he says. “But could I borrow your shower?”

“What’s- uh,” Jesse says, staring at him wide-eyed and plainly distracted from asking any questions. He doesn’t look like he’s been drinking himself to death lately, or anything else so dire. “Yeah, uh. Sure.”

“Thank you,” Jack says, smiling.

Jesse leads him inside to the bathroom and tells him to help himself, so Jack does. Hot water feels amazing after a long, wet run, and he doesn’t trouble himself with hurrying, taking the time to get fully clean from in between his toes to behind his ears and feel human again. He comes out with a towel wrapped around his waist and finds Jesse sitting gingerly on the sofa in the front room, a stack of folded clothes on the coffee table beside him.

“You need some clothes too…?” he asks Jack.

“That would be perfect.”

“No problem,” Jesse says weakly. “So. What’re you doin’ out this way? Y’okay? Is- is Gabriel okay?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Jack says as he drops the towel and starts getting dressed. The clothes are all soft and worn, a little too big but quite comfortable. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you, I just got stuck in the rain and, well. I remembered you lived around here.” A lie of course, but a small one.

Jesse is studiously looking away as Jack finishes pulling on his t-shirt and tugs it down, but he glances up at him cautiously. Jack almost feels bad for springing a surprise visit on him, even if it’s for the best.

Jack takes a breath, and decides to get to the point. “Also, I wanted to apologize. For how we left things with you.”

“Oh. You didn’t- I mean, I’m sure you had your reasons-”

Jack shrugs. “We did, but it seemed a little unfair anyway. It must have seemed so sudden. But you should know we are very grateful for your help.”

“Yeah,” Jesse murmurs. “Anytime.”

Jack feels a little awkward then. The kid wasn’t making this difficult at all. He’d been prepared for suspicion, resentment maybe, even anger. Jack had certainly been angry enough on the other side of this whole debacle. But Jesse is being surprisingly docile.

“So, uh.” Jesse asks after a moment. “You… want anything to eat?”

And _nice_.

Jack smiles warmly at him. “Yes, thank you.”

Jesse leads him back to the kitchen and dishes up a plate for him from some kind of baked casserole, apologizing that it’s all he’s got at the moment. Jack brushes off the apologies; the food is good, chicken and rice and maybe more cheese than really necessary, but it’s hot and filling and Jack is hungry. He makes quick work of the meal, washing it down with the beer Jesse offers while apologizing once again for not having anything else to drink besides that or water.

“No, I’m fine, really,” Jack insists. “Did you make this? It’s good.”

“Lady next door gave it to me,” Jesse says, watching him from where he’s leaned against the counter where he’s got a beer for himself next to the casserole dish. He grins faintly, the corner of his mouth sliding up. “She thinks I can’t feed myself so she’s always givin’ me somethin’... You want more? There’s plenty.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Jack says, handing over his empty plate for Jesse to scoop another cheesy mound onto it. Before he knows it he’s polished off three servings because Jesse won’t let him turn down another after he finishes the second almost as fast as the first.

“Oh,” he says, when he sits back satisfied only to see Jesse putting the empty casserole dish in the sink. “I didn’t just eat all your food, did I?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Jesse says. “I gotta do my shoppin’ tomorrow anyway.” Then he turns on the sink and starts washing up.

Jack guiltily watches Jesse’s back while he’s scrubbing the dirty dishes. He’d apologized, and hopefully did it nice enough that he could go back to Gabriel and tell him all amends have been properly made and he could go ahead with a clear conscience. But Jesse took him in like the most gracious thing alive, let him wash up, wear his clothes, and eat his food without a single unkind word. If he’d treated Gabriel anything like this Jack is beginning to understand why Gabe stuck around so long, and why he feels like shit now.

Jack grimaces then, remembering how he himself had given Jesse a handful of cash while leaving, thinking that should make up for everything without any explanation at all. God, poor kid. Words wouldn’t be enough.

“Y’know, I’m glad you like hotdish,” Jesse says suddenly. “Gabriel wouldn’t touch it when he was here. Turned up his nose more’n once.”

“It’s not his favorite kind of thing,” Jack says, glad for the interruption. “I don’t think he’s ever even been to a potluck in his life. And he’s just stuck up.”

Jesse laughs. He turns off the sink, grabbing a towel from the counter to start drying, and Jack can’t sit still a moment longer. He ignores Jesse’s protests until he’s given the towel and allowed to dry everything, even if it’s only the dish and his plate and fork. At the very least he can’t make a complete ass of himself while he’s here.

“Well, I’m gonna have a smoke,” Jesse says, after showing Jack where to put the clean dishes. He hooks his thumb towards the back door. “You want one?”

“I don’t smoke,” Jack says, because he can’t bring himself to take the man’s cigarettes too. “But I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”

Jesse shrugs. They go out to the little porch he has behind his house, and stay well under the awning to keep dry as the rain hasn’t let up at all in the hour or so since Jack had arrived. Jack politely stands a few feet removed while Jesse lights up, looking out into the dark backyard and listening to the beat of the pouring rain above their heads. It’s so quiet out here, and the neighbor’s house can’t be closer than hundred yards away, barely worth any attention at that distance.

“Gabe really lucked out,” he says then. “Of all the places he could’ve stopped, he found yours.”

Jesse glances sideways at him, grinning as he taps ash off his cigarette into a rusted coffee tin. “I didn’t do much,” he says.

“He told me about it. How good you were to him,” Jack says, then pauses as Jesse makes a face and looks away. “What?”

“He told you… about all of it?”

“Oh,” Jack says. “About sleeping with him? Yeah.”

Jesse coughs, and then keeps coughing, loud and long enough that Jack gets worried and hovers closer but Jesse waves him off until he gets his breath back, though he still looks stricken. “I’m really sorry,” he says eventually, sounding choked up. “I didn’t mean to- get between you-”

“Oh! No,” Jack hurries to reassure him. “I don’t care about that, not at all. I’m sorry, we really should’ve told you. Our kind aren’t, ah… the monogamous type.”

Jesse is rubbing at his mouth, clearly flustered, and swallows before he flicks a glance at Jack. “Uh. That so?”

“Yes, really it’s fine.” Now Jack is annoyed at himself for not clearing this up immediately. Gabriel was right, they really had fucked up the transition here. The silence drags out for a minute, and Jack doesn’t know what to say but finally he settles for just what he’s thinking. “You’re too good for all that we’ve put you through, honestly. Gabe shouldn’t have taken advantage of that in the first place.”

Jesse shakes his head. “Nah, he didn’t take advantage of anythin’,” he says quietly.

Jack sighs. This kid was too damn sweet. They’d never be able to return all the kindness Jesse had given them at this rate. “If he wanted to see you again, would that be alright?”

“If he wants,” Jesse says, though he picks his words slowly. “He’s doin’ okay, you said?”

“He’s moping.” Gabriel would not appreciate having his little crisis of affection described as such, but since he hadn’t come here to solve it himself it was tough luck for him.

“Oh,” Jesse says. “Wait. ‘Cause of me?”

Jack can’t help cracking a grin at the crinkled look of disbelief on Jesse’s face. “I’m pretty sure he misses you.”

“Oh,” Jesse says again, then “ow, shit!” as his forgotten cigarette has finally burned all the way down to his fingers; he throws it out into the rain and shakes his hand, hissing.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, just fuckin’...” Jesse stops shaking his hand and peers at it in the dark. “Fine. Anyway, um. He can come over any time.”

“I’ll let him know,” Jack says, feeling warm and glad to have at least secured the possibility for more amends. Speaking of, he needs to clue Gabriel in on where he’s been since leaving the house that afternoon. “Actually, I should probably call him to pick me up. Can I use your phone?”

“What, in this?” Jesse asks, nodding towards the downpour. “I mean yeah, but pretty sure the road from town is flooded out by now.”

“Ah,” Jack says. He hadn’t planned on that. Whoops.

Jesse shrugs. “Always does it when it rains this much. You can stay the night if you need to. C’mon, left my phone inside.”

Jack follows him in and accepts Jesse’s cellphone, and Jesse wanders to the other side of the house, leaving him some space in the kitchen to make his call.

Gabriel is not happy to learn why Jack has been missing for half the day, whose phone he’s using, or where he will be sleeping tonight.

“Jack,” Gabriel growls through the phone, which Jack has chosen to hold a few inches away from his ear as a caution. He can picture the exact way Gabriel is most likely pacing through the house right now. “I swear to God.”

“Okay, pick me up tomorrow then,” Jack tells him cheerfully. “Oh, and can you bring some groceries with you? I think he’s out.”

“Jack-”

“Don’t forget my clothes. Goodnight!” Jack says, loud enough that Jesse can probably hear, and hangs up. It was likely not the best idea to leave Gabriel stewing over this while alone at home until tomorrow, but he didn’t have much of a choice, did he.

He goes to find Jesse, who has retreated to the couch in the room at the front of the house, and is hastily turning up the volume on the TV when Jack comes out from the hall.

“Gabriel says hi,” Jack tells him, while deciding whether it would be too forward to join Jesse on the couch, or maybe change back so he can take a spot on the floor. But Jesse is already scooting over to make room for him, and Jack can’t decline.

“You tell him about the roads?” Jesse asks as Jack sits down with him.

“Yeah, he’ll be here tomorrow with the car.” Jack checks what Jesse’s got on TV: some reality show following a police chase. “Thank you for letting me stay over, though. You really didn’t have to.”

“”Course,” Jesse says with a shrug. “I wouldn’t kick you out in this weather.”

Jack huffs a laugh. “Are you always like this?” and when Jesse looks at him, questioning, he waves a hand to encompass everything: the modest little house, warm and dry inside from the rain, with a shower and clean clothes and a hot meal ready, and a comfortable couch set up in front of the cheap entertainment on TV. “Just, so nice to everyone? You didn’t even have to let me in the door. _I_ wouldn’t have let me in the door.”

“Well, not normally no.” Jesse’s eyes slant towards him then, and to Jack’s surprise he says, “But I guess I’m partial to dogs showing up at my house and… good looking men.”

Jack raises an eyebrow, smiling. “I hope for your sake that doesn’t happen often.”

Jesse smirks, though he looks away then and rubs at his neck, self-conscious. “Well, just the twice now. So far so good, s’long as you don’t rob me in my sleep tonight or anythin’.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jack says.

Though, later, Jack doesn’t say a word when Jesse seems to assume they’ll be sharing the only bed in the house when Jack would be perfectly comfortable anywhere. He’s trying to be polite, not a saint.

And once they’re in bed for the night it does make him feel better to finally have something else he can do that’s on par with how generous Jesse has been. He makes it very good for him too, at least as much as he can tell from the mindless way Jesse strokes and clutches at his hair, and how his head falls back as Jack lets him fuck into his mouth with helpless, shallow circles of his hips.

“Jesus,” is his breathless confirmation from Jesse, sprawled loose and limp and taking up most of the bed.

“Good?” Jack murmurs.

“Better’n good,” Jesse sighs. Then he turns his head and looks at Jack through the lashes of half lidded eyes, and he lifts a hand to stroke his knuckles over the top of Jack’s thigh. “C’mere.”

Jack goes, and he lets Jesse curl a hand around him so he can rub off against it while Jesse pulls him even closer by the back of his neck and undoes him with soft, easy kisses.

“You really should be more careful,” Jack tells him after, with his eyes almost closed and their legs crossed together under the sheets, his cheek pressed to Jesse’s shoulder.

“Why’s’at,” Jesse asks fuzzily, sounding like he’s crossing the edge of sleep.

“You make it too easy to get used to this,” Jack says. He understands very well now how Gabriel had gotten caught in this trap.

Jesse hums. Jack doesn’t know if he’s really listening or has nodded off and is just making the right sounds but he slides his palm over Jesse’s warm chest and ruba circles there. “Don’t let any more dogs in,” he murmurs, in case he might hear anyway. “Two is enough.”

Jack wakes up in the morning before Jesse does, and stays in bed for a while just looking. Jesse seems even younger in his sleep, with his mouth slack and only the faintest laugh lines by his eyes. Maybe it’s the amount of crappy tattoos scattered all over him that make him seem older, from his calves up to his collarbones, but he can’t be more than thirty. Jack traces one with just a fingertip, an outline of winged poker chip on Jesse’s shoulder that’s next to a snake, or something. Jesse is cute though, good enough to eat even with the bizarre choices for decoration, and Jack is tempted to explore those a little more and wake him up nicely.

But then Jesse sighs and shifts around, and it’s still early so Jack leaves him be to sleep longer while he slides out of bed and goes to find something else to do.

He finds the coffee and the coffee maker and ends up out on the back porch for a while, standing in only another pair of borrowed gym shorts and drinking from a mug emblazoned with a faded logo for what must be a local football team. It is really nice out here, he thinks. The day had begun bright and clear and the grass is gleaming in the early morning sun, still heavy with last night’s rain, and there’s nothing to see but trees beyond that. He can’t remember the last time he was far enough away from a town that he couldn’t hear any cars in the distance, just birds and bugs and the breeze.

He’d like to go for a run, all that open land giving him an itch to change back to four legs and take off for a while, but he doesn’t know what time Jesse normally wakes up and it feels wrong not to be there when he does. So he finishes his coffee and goes back inside to see what he can scrounge up for breakfast.

Jesse emerges eventually, blinking and scratching his stomach under the t-shirt he wore yesterday. He half yawns, “mornin’,” then perks up more quickly when Jack hands him a plate with an omelet on it. Thankfully there had been just enough eggs and butter left in the fridge for both of them. They eat together, and afterwards Jack refuses to let him near the dishes so Jesse sheepishly excuses himself to shower and get changed into something clean.

Jack considers finding his phone to call Gabriel again and reiterate the need for groceries, because he’d looked around and there was really nothing anymore besides beer and ketchup in the fridge, and some dusty cans of vegetables in the cupboards. But he also knows it’s safe enough to trust that when it comes to giving Gabriel directions, less results in more. Besides that, Gabriel is probably on his way already.

“Jesse,” Jack calls when he hears the bathroom door open. “You think the road’s open?”

“Dunno,” Jesse says. He comes to the kitchen doorway, looking damp and still holding a towel but now dressed in a new pair of shorts and t-shirt. “Maybe. Want me to go check?”

“Nah,” Jack tells him. Let Gabriel figure it out for himself.

Not much more time passes before Jack hears the familiar sound of their car approaching while Jesse is out back smoking just after his shower. Jack goes and raps on the screen door to get his attention, letting him know Gabriel will be pulling up to the house in a moment.

Jesse hastens to his feet, brushing his hands off on his thighs before he plucks the cigarette from his mouth and tosses it into the coffee tin, coming inside just as they hear the knock on the front door. He looks nervous.

“I’ll get it,” Jack offers, and at Jesse’s nod he goes to the door, opening it to find Gabriel standing there, paper bags stuffed with groceries in his arms and an annoyed slant on his mouth. “Morning,” Jack says, with a grin that grows as Gabriel’s eyes flick over him, to his bare chest and borrowed gym shorts, frown deepening.

“Hi,” Jesse says then, appearing near Jack’s shoulder, and Jack enjoys the way Gabriel blanks his face all at once, suddenly the picture of neutrality. “What’s all that?”

“I asked him to stop by the store,” Jack says brightly. “Since we’ve cleaned you out about twice now.”

“Ah shit, you didn’t have to do that,” Jesse says, but Jack grabs one of the bags from Gabriel, leaving him to rebalance the others.

“It’s the least we can do,” Jack tells him as he turns towards the hall. “Don’t just stand there, Gabe. Bring those inside.”

He doesn’t wait for either of them to follow, but from the kitchen he can hear the two of them in the front room exchanging some awkward hello’s and how’ve you been’s, and he’s still smirking to himself while he starts putting food away in Jesse’s fridge. Gabriel makes it so obvious and so difficult at the same time, it’s really a feat.

Eventually they join him in the kitchen. Gabriel unceremoniously drops the rest of the grocery bags on the table, and then stands there looking uncomfortable as Jesse digs through them, pulling out jars of pasta sauce and marmalade and saying, “Oh this looks good, huh never had that before, what’s this?” about everything he picks up and sets right back down in favor of the next item in the bag.

“This is makin’ me hungry again,” Jesse says eventually, reading the back of a box of elbow macaroni. “Ah, you have breakfast yet?” he asks, looking up at Gabriel.

“I’m fine,” Gabriel says.

“You sure?” Jesse asks.

“If you keep feeding him he’ll keep coming back,” Jack says, ignoring Gabriel’s unfriendly look in favor of watching Jesse pink up at the suggestion and distract himself with the groceries again.

It doesn’t take long to get everything put away, even with Jack doing most of it, guessing which cabinets to stock and managing to fit everything perishable in the fridge and freezer, both of which are now packed from top to bottom. As he’d figured, Gabriel had settled on buying everything he could think of and now Jesse had enough food to last him a month on his own. Though, less if he had company.

“Did you bring me anything to wear home?” Jack asks Gabriel, once all the bags are empty and folded and the kitchen table is clear.

“It’s in the car,” Gabriel says, and he abruptly walks out of the kitchen to go get them.

Jesse is chewing on his lip, watching. “Is he mad? I really didn’t need all this stuff, you know.”

“It’s not that,” Jack says. “I didn’t tell him I was coming to see you.”

“Should we not’ve…?” Jesse trails off, and waggles a thumb in the direction of the bedroom.

“If he didn’t want to share, he shouldn’t have made me come all the way out here to drag him home in the first place.”

Jesse shakes his head, a grin teasing at the side of his mouth. “You two are somethin’, I don’t know what though.”

Jack smiles back, and then goes to intercept Gabriel when he hears him returning from outside.

Gabriel hands him a plastic bag.

“Thank you,” Jack says. “I’ll get changed, then we can leave.”

Gabriel grunts, and Jack pauses before he goes into the bedroom. “If you wanted to do anything besides make sad eyes at him when he’s not looking, you better go do it now.”

“You’re a prick,” Gabriel tells him.

“I know, dear,” Jack says. “Go talk to him.”

He takes his time getting dressed, this time in his own clothes. Then he tosses the clothes Jesse loaned him in the hamper in the corner of the room, and takes another minute picking up all the other laundry left languishing on the floor and throws that in too. He makes the bed and fluffs the pillows, and closes two dresser drawers that’d been left halfway open. That should do it.

When he comes out and checks down the hall, he has a view framed perfectly by the kitchen doorway of Gabriel leaning into Jesse against the edge of the table, face cupped in one palm, kissing him slow and sweet.

“Should I just drive myself home?” Jack calls to them, and Jesse’s eyes blink open slowly as Gabriel turns to scowl. Jack smiles.

He takes a seat on the arm of the couch and waits, listening to them murmuring in low tones, and then Gabriel appears first, looking more placated at least than anything else.

“We’re going,” he tells Jack, who nods and stands up to find Jesse at the end of the hall with his thumbs hooked in his pockets and a lopsided little grin on his face.

Jack just barely stops himself from going over and getting in the last kiss, not wanting to disturb Gabriel’s first tenuous grasp on a good mood in weeks. He settles for returning Jesse’s warm, “bye,” before following Gabriel out to the car and climbing into the waiting passenger seat next to him.

“So,” he says, settling in for the ride home as Gabriel reverses away from the house and onto the road. “When are you going back?”

Gabriel glances at the house one last time. “Tomorrow,” he says, and sounds pleased enough with himself after all the trouble he’d caused.

Jack reaches over to pat him on the knee. He’s honestly glad to hear it, these last two months had been more than trying. “Maybe this time don’t stay so long you’ll need to start paying rent.”

“Funny. He said you’re welcome any time too.”

Jack hums. Outside the window they’re passing by trees on one side, and pasture on the other. It’s sunny, green, and pretty as far as the eye can see. “Maybe we should’ve just brought him back with us.”

Gabriel doesn’t look away from the road, but he tilts his head, seeming ready to consider it. He drops one hand to cover Jack’s on his knee, squeezing back gently. “It’s kind of nice out here, though,” he says, after a few more minutes of rolling by the countryside.

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. “You picked a good place to stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.


End file.
